


should have known this all along

by ObscureReference



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Character Study, Child Abuse, Dark, Devotion, Loyalty, M/M, Minor Violence, Multi, Murder, Regicide, brief descriptions of death, dark!Leo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-16 20:06:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11260017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObscureReference/pseuds/ObscureReference
Summary: In a world in which Anankos does not exist but King Garon still becomes a monster, Leo decides to do what is best for his family.--“I’ll do it,” Odin repeated, like he couldn’t say the wordsI’ll kill the kingaloud. For all the rage in Leo’s heart, he could barely stand to think them.“No,” a familiar sly voice drawled. “Wewill do it.”





	should have known this all along

**Author's Note:**

> The working title on my computer for this was "leo fucking kills garon." I liked that title a lot. 
> 
> IMPORTANT NOTE/MINOR SPOILERS: I tagged "Child Abuse" because at one point Garon slaps Elise. I don't know how old Elise is supposed to be in-game, but I doubt she's of adult age and in any case, hitting your kid is a big no-no. That's as bad as it gets in this fic (one slap on-screen, Elise's reaction [Ex: crying, swollen face, etc.] mentioned several times, iirc) and the other witness (Leo) is properly disgusted with such behavior, but if anyone is uncomfortable with that, that's totally understandable. Do what's best for you.
> 
> This fic ended up being way darker than I thought it was when I began.

“Stop,” Odin said as though he had any idea what Leo was planning, his fingers scrambling at Leo’s sides. “Lord Leo, _stop._ ”

His hand wrapped around Leo’s elbow. Leo felt like a broken dish that had been hastily glued back together. He could still see Elise laying on the floor every time he blinked.

“Let go,” Leo said, his voice ice. He wasn’t looking at Odin; he was looking over Odin’s shoulder, looking for the man—his father—who had thrown his sister to the ground. He was somewhere else in the castle, but Leo’s retainers could not keep Leo tucked away forever. He would relieve his siblings of this burden if it was the last thing he did.

Odin’s fingers tightened around his arm. Again, Leo said, “Let go.”

Typically, Odin didn’t.

“Lord Leo, _think_ about what you’re doing.”

“I _am_ ,” Leo snarled. “My father—”

His father.

His father was sick. He had gotten sicker and sicker and today he had _slapped_ Elise, had thrown her to the ground like she was nothing, like she wasn’t even his daughter. She had looked so s _mall_ there, curled up on herself, trying not to cry with the desperation of a child who most definitely would. Garon had hit her, he was _sick_ , Nohr was suffering, it was only going to get worse—

Leo shook his head. He took a moment to collect himself. The world burned no less hotly than it had a moment ago, but he steadied himself with a breath. He couldn’t ask for a favor like this. Not from Odin. Not from Niles. Not from anyone.

His breaths came out in gasps. They hadn’t even left Leo’s bedroom yet. The weight of Odin’s hand on his arm felt like an anchor, and Leo couldn’t keep himself from curling his fingers into the shoulder of Odin’s shirt. If his hands drifted down a few more inches he would have felt if Odin’s heart was beating as wildly as Leo’s.

He shut his eyes. Opened them.

“I won’t ask this of you.” Leo forced his voice to be even. “You don’t know I’m planning.”

 _You have deniability_ , Leo wanted to say, but that would have been too much. Even that much tasted like a lie. Niles and Odin had always known him, inside and out.

“Don’t lie,” Odin said, echoing his thoughts. “Niles and I—we’re here to _protect_ you, milord. You don’t have to do _anything_.”

Of course he did.

No one could ever know. His siblings would never forgive him.

But of course Leo did.

“I do.”

Odin’s lips were pressed into a tight line. He looked Leo in the eye. “You don’t have to.”

“Don’t tell me what I have to do,” Leo said tiredly. Even this felt like too much. He trusted Odin with all his heart, but he could not bear to burden either of his retainers with such knowledge or danger. He could not bear the burden of what they would think of him after this. “You won’t be in trouble, I promise. I won’t ask you to keep quiet. Just go—”

“ _I’ll_ do it.”

Leo froze, all at once on edge. He couldn’t have heard right.

“Excuse me?” he rasped.

“I’ll do it,” Odin repeated, like he couldn’t say the words _I’ll kill the king_ aloud. For all the rage in Leo’s heart, he could barely stand to think them.

“No,” a familiar, sly voice drawled. “ _We_ will do it.”

Leo jumped. He ignored the way Odin drew closer as he pulled away, too overcome with the dawning dread that someone else had heard, that Leo had let his emotions get the best of him, to notice.

“Niles.”

Somber and standing in the doorway, Niles looked at them. The door shut behind him with a click.

He thought Niles had been escorting Elise back to her chambers, had been lying to Effie and Arthur about the source of Elise’s swelling cheek. Elise certainly would have wanted it that way, and Leo had certainly told Niles not to tell anyone else.

Niles had known him longer; If Odin knew, Niles certainly did as well. This was dangerous, this was—

“How much did you—”

“Everything,” Niles interrupted, his voice devoid of his usually teasing tone. His eyes were unwavering. “Odin and I will do it.”

He did not say the words either, but knowing Niles, that was more for deniability rather than any stone that sat in his stomach like Leo’s. For all Leo knew, Niles had been sulking outside the door, knowing what Leo had been thinking before he even got back to his room. He probably had.

“I would never ask you to do something I wouldn’t do myself,” Leo said. His mouth tasted like ash.

Niles looked at him, soothing. “I know. But Odin and I are in a better position for it.”

Odin had said nothing, but it was clear from his body language that he agreed.

The world spun beneath Leo’s feet. He couldn’t ask this of them.

“This is not an order,” Leo said. “In fact, I’d much rather you not be involved in this at all.”

Odin didn’t take his hand, but he brushed the back of Leo’s with his knuckles. A reminder. “We know.”

“That’s partly why we’re so willing,” Niles added. “You are our liege. And you’re a good person, my lord.”

It felt like so much more than that. There had to be. You did not betray the crown for a “good person.” Leo doubted he even qualified.

Niles had always been there, ever present in Leo’s life, and after Odin had wormed his way in, so had he. Both of them. Sitting at Leo’s spare desk on long nights. Reminding him to eat. Flanking either side of him as the battle began.

The first time Odin, Niles, and Leo fought side by side, it had felt so familiar and righteous that Leo had ached for days with the echo of it.

“This is treachery,” Leo reminded them. “You’d be put to death just for discussing this with me, no questions asked.”

“So would you,” Odin said. His face was earnest. “I don’t know what we did to make you think we wouldn’t move the world for you, but I am sorry.”

Sorry. Leo was planning the murder of his own father, and _Odin_ was sorry.

Leo barked a laugh that edged on hysterical. Niles gave him a look and wandered over, taking Leo’s free hand in his own.

Niles lowered himself to his knees. Leo had never once doubted Niles’ devotion, but it shone so bright now that it hurt to look at. The pad of Niles’ thumb brushed over Leo’s knuckles.

Leo felt the memory of the first time they’d met pulse behind his eyelids.

In his mind’s eye, he saw Xander, spine stiff and crown heavy. He saw Camilla, walking tall, pretending the bags under her eyes weren’t as bad as they were. He saw Corrin, locked away in her tower.

He saw Elise with her swollen face and wet eyes. His sister.

A shadow hung over them all, Leo included.

Every breath Leo took felt like not enough and too much all at once. His blood thrummed in his veins.

He wanted this. For Xander. Camilla. Corrin.

Elise, Elise, Elise.

His treacherous lips moved. “You’re betraying the crown.”

“We’re really not,” Odin said. His fingers twitched.

“Our loyalties have always been to you,” Niles said, looking at Leo like Leo should have known this all along. 

 

 

 

“I’ve always been sullied,” Niles said. “There’s no changing the past. You took me in, and you have my loyalty. So let me be sully for you, just this once.”

Odin said, “I would move the heavens and pluck the stars from the night sky if it would make you smile, milord.”

His lips were chaste against Leo’s mouth, and when Leo fell, Niles caught him.

 

 

 

Leo remembered when his father had been kind. He remembered being young and so much more foolish than he was now, asking for piggyback rides and a moment of his father’s time. And he had been granted them. He remembered the smiles Father had sent his way. He remembered gobbling up the attention, heart swelling at being the center of his father’s world for even a moment.

Leo remembered kindness.

Father hadn’t been kind in a long, long time.

 

 

 

After Elise was born, Father turned cold.

It was possible he had been growing indifferent to his children and his kingdom before her birth, but Leo hadn’t registered it then. He had been too young, too absorbed in his picture books and the whispers of a soon-to-be new royal sibling arriving at the castle.

His mother hadn’t liked the idea of a Leo’s new sibling. She had dragged Leo around a lot in those days, telling him to do this or that to get Father’s attention. Father had begun looking his way a lot less then. It wasn’t long before Father sent Leo’s mother away. Leo hadn’t minded then. He liked Father a lot more than his mother, who told him to do so many things he hadn’t liked.

Then Elise was born. Leo hadn’t been there, but he’d heard later how Father had refused to see her when offered the chance. He heard his tutor whispering to another servant that Father hadn’t even held Elise after she was born. Even to Leo’s young ears, that sounded odd.

That had been the first sign something was wrong, but Leo had been too young to understand it then. It would be even longer before he did something about it.

Father had refused to see Elise after she was born. He told everyone except the staff to stay away as well.

Leo had never seen a baby before.

In a moment of weakness—when the servants were busy, when the nurse maid’s back was turned, when Elise’s mother had vanished—Leo snuck into the bedroom and peered into Elise’s crib.

She had been small. So, so small. Leo had never seen a person as small as her in all his life.

He had never been an older brother before either. Xander, Camilla, and Corrin were all older than him, even though Corrin was only older by a little. He was “the baby,” Camilla said. Now there was a real baby in front of him. Someone younger than him who needed to be watched over.

She was a bit ugly, he thought.

Leo hadn’t been big enough to pick Elise then, nor nimble enough to open the bars. He had to stand on his tip-toes just to look into the crib. But he wouldn’t always be small. He would grow someday, and then he could hold Elise like Father hadn’t. Even if she was ugly and tiny and a little smelly, she was his sister; he swore to watch over her forever, like a big brother was supposed to.

Leo had never taken his promises lightly.

 

 

 

“We will soon invade Hoshido.”

Father's authority was unquestionable.

Leo did not like the idea of invading Hoshido, a powerful and daunting nation in its own right. Nohr was not hurting for lands or commodities. The state of affairs had been somewhat of a decline in the past few years, but Hoshido had always been a benevolent neighbor. There was no reason to invade.

He said nothing.

Father looked at two of his children. Leo wondered what he saw. “I will make a formal announcement to the rest of you later.”

Leo nodded, resigned. Something like this deserved the utmost secrecy for now, but he would have to have a private word with Niles and Odin later to warn them. They would have to help him carry out some quick preparations, of course. He would have to catch Xander alone. Plans to protect as many civilians as possible, to stockpile food for the winter, had to be made. Nohr had poor farmlands and thus imported most of its produce; they would have to prepare for that.

His palms were slick with anticipation and dread. He pretended they weren’t.

Elise…

Elise stared wide-eyed at their father, mouth open. Leo mentally willed her to stay quiet.

She didn’t.

“But Father,” Elise said, taking a tentative step forward. Father pinned her with a look so sharp Leo flinched in tandem with his sister.

“Elise,” Leo warned, hoping she saw the pleading look in his eye. Father had not been the forgiving type in a long, long time. Neither had Elise ever been one to protest the will of her elders. Then again, Father had never suggested something so drastic as war before. Perhaps Leo should have foreseen this.

Stupidly, he hadn’t.

Elise looked at him. She frowned. She looked again to the king, anxious but unflinching.

“What,” Father said lowly. A threat. “were you about to say?”

Elise swallowed. She took another tentative step forward. She and here Father stood mere feet apart.

“It’s just.” She breathed in. “Winter is coming, and the people, especially the poorer ones, they—”

“Are you _questioning_ me?” Father growled.

Elise shook her head, frantic. “No! No, of course not! It’s just—”

“Just _what_?” Now it was Father’s turn to step forward, and Leo wanted nothing more than to grab his sister by the hand and run. Her pigtails trembled as much as she. Leo’s heart hammered in his chest. “You dare protest the king, your _father’s_ , orders? You value the lives of those livestock more than your own family?”

“They’re not—” _livestock_ Elise probably wanted to say, but she caught herself and switched gears. “No, you’re right. I’m sorry—"

Garon slapped her. Openhanded. Elise crumpled to the ground like she weighed nothing.

Leo couldn’t mask the bile in his throat nor the concern on his face. “Elise!”

Garon looked at him, unfeeling, as Elise propped herself up, eyes wet. Her fingers delicately brushed her own cheek. She winced, trying and failing to hide the pain.

Leo stood frozen. He could not move with Garon standing there over his sister. He didn’t know what Garon would do.

“Take her,” Garon said finally. “She’s learned her lesson. There will be no second warning.”

“Of course,” Leo rasped. He wanted to puke. He wanted to hit Garon for his actions and himself for his inaction. “I’ll take her right away.”

Garon turned aside, and Leo rushed to Elise’s side as fast as he could without seeming like he cared too much. Not in front of the king.

“ _Elise_ ,” he whispered as soon as Garon was out of earshot—still in the room but acting as though they weren’t present. “Are you okay?”

A stupid, pointless question, but he couldn’t keep himself from asking nonetheless.

“I’m fine,” Elise said quietly. She let Leo help her to her feet, face downcast and ashamed. “I’m really o—ok—okay. It was my—my fault.”

Her breath hitched. She was trying not to cry despite the quivering of her lower lip. For such a young girl, Elise had always been strong.

Leo’s heart shattered just a tiny bit more.

Then it turned to stone. His resolve hardened.

They were about to enter a war they did not need. Even if they won, Nohrians would die. Leo’s _family_ could die. Hoshido was nothing to scoff at; the war would last years, perhaps decades. They could not afford losses like that if they could avoid it.

Garon was vicious. Cruel. He hadn’t always been, but there was no denying it now. Leo barely remembered a better time. The king’s hold on his kingdom was stifling. The castle staff lived in fear. _Leo_ lived in fear. There were Nohrian citizens—the poor, the unfortunate Leo knew Elise sometimes snuck out to visit—dying in the capital streets. There was no mercy for enemies and certainly none for kin. Leo had been ordered to perform one too many distasteful tasks to believe otherwise.

A king that would harm his own children cared not for his kingdom.

A king that would harm his own children was no king at all. 

Leo’s fingers tightened around Elise’s forearm. He bent close.

“Let’s take you back to your room,” Leo said as kindly as he could. “I’ll ask Flora to get you some ice.”

He could send Niles to watch them. Leo had some planning to do before he lost the confidence.

Killing a king took planning, after all.

Elise followed without protesting. She spared another glance for Garon, the apprehension in her face plain to see.

She sucked in a breath, and when she opened her mouth again, her voice did not waver as much as before. Leo hated that she had developed that skill.

“Leo,” she said. “Can we… Can we not tell Xander and Camilla about this? Please?”

Even with the ice, Elise’s face would swell. It had begun to swell already. The bruises on her face would darken and deepen. Everyone would know what Garon had done. But if Flora healed Elise, there would be less questions. Less motivation for Leo’s actions.

Leo didn’t believe this violence could be kept a secret forever—perhaps not even for long—but the less people that knew for now, the better. It gave Leo some time to think.

Elise looked up at him, pleading. Her hand slipped into his.

“No,” Leo said. “Of course not.”

 

 

 

The slap had not been Leo’s only reason.

There had been other things, of course. It had been Garon’s uncaring attitude, the way poverty had worsened in the capital and how the king had been content to let his people starve in the streets. It had been his apathy at the virus that had ravaged the countryside a few years ago, the way he had told the royal healers not to bother looking for a cure. _"The weak will succumb,"_ he’d said.

That was always his reasoning. The weak would succumb, and the strong would survive. Leo did not think life were so clean cut. He knew which category Garon believed he belonged, and he knew which category to which Garon really belonged.

It had been the way Garon ran Xander ragged, how gaunt and hollow Xander looked as of late—when Leo saw him at all. It had been the way Garon had dismissed his advisors years ago, content with the idea his decisions were superb and final. It had been his violence, his ruthlessness, the way he’d rather let the blood of foreigners pool in the streets than allow them to walk free. It had been everything.

Leo’s reasoning had built up over time, slowly but surely. The thought of it all—Leo’s determination—had not always been there. Certainly it had never been as fully formed as it was now. Leo had never woken up in the morning with the urge to harm the king. Not before now.

Garon had once been Leo’s beloved father, after all.

But not anymore.

Leo would have been lying if he said the slap wasn’t a huge part of it. The slap had only solidified something in Leo’s heart.

Family was so important.

 

 

 

Sometimes, on cloudy days, Leo caught Odin talking to crows. He fed them bits of food out of the palm of his hand and whispered quietly to them, so out of character that Leo had worried the first time he’d seen. Sometimes the crows landed on Odin’s shoulder and sat there. Sometimes they circled overhead, both in and out of battle.

Leo had asked him about it once. With a faraway look on his face, Odin told Leo they reminded him of his father.

“Is it better to get rid of the body or let it be found?” Odin asked. It was the only question he asked. “Because I can get rid of it.”

Leo thought of the crows. He didn’t doubt Odin could be rid of a body at all.

“Let it be found,” he and Niles said at the same time. They looked at each other.

Niles shrugged. “There’s less questionability about passing on the kingship if he’s confirmed dead.”

Leo nodded. His thoughts exactly. It would be easier all around if there was a body. It would make his siblings happier to bury their father in person as well.

Xander would make a wonderful king. Perhaps it was earlier than he would have liked, but Leo didn’t doubt that much. Xander would be amazing. So much better than the monster currently on the throne.

Odin squeezed Leo’s hand and smiled like he wasn’t planning on murdering Leo’s father. “There will be a question of assassination.” Of course. “But don’t worry. No one will question you.”

Odin was right. Leo had no suspicious aspirations to motivate him. He was third in line for the crown. And Garon was his beloved father, after all.

“Go comfort your sister,” Niles said. So Leo would have an alibi.

“After,” Leo said. There would be no details now. Again, deniability. But. “After, you’ll tell me everything, won’t you?”

Niles kissed his brow like a promise.

 

 

 

Just as Niles guaranteed, it was not a member of the royal family that found Garon but a servant. A maid.

The king had not been found in the throne room. He’d been stuffed in a closet, nestled among the bedding and dust rags. When the maid opened the door, Garon’s body fell, sprawling into the corridor, limp and bloody at her feet. A sword had been bushed so far through his chest it stuck out his back. The king looked like death itself, they’d said.

No one had allowed Leo to see. Too traumatic, they said. Leo thought it for the best. He hadn’t been sure if he could keep the elation off his face if he saw.

In any case, the king’s corpse fell at the maid’s feet.

The maid screamed. She screamed and screamed and screamed, and when guards and butlers and other maids came running, she screamed some more.

Leo felt somewhat sorry for her. Mostly, he felt relieved.

The whole castle had been sent into a spiral within moments. Servants had been pulled aside for interrogation. Guards had been put on high alert and then pulled aside as well. Security tripled. Xander and Camilla barely took any time to compose themselves before they began personally interrogating suspects. Their faces were pale with worry and grief, but there was a relaxed sloping to their shoulders that hadn’t been there before. Like a weight that had finally been shed. No one mentioned it; Leo may have been the only one to notice.

Elise and Corrin had been ushered into the same tower, both sets of retainers standing guard. Nobody doubted Effie or Jakob’s devotion to their lieges. Leo’s sisters had never been safer from an imaginary threat.

Leo assisted with the interrogations, playing as though he was truly hunting for his father’s killer when he really knew the truth. Everyone required a solid alibi. Leo provided one for Niles and Odin, of course; no one would doubt a prince, and Leo did not doubt his own theatrical skills. He was confident enough in his own tactical abilities to keep prying eyes away from the dark corners in which Leo didn’t want them to look. The biggest struggle was keeping the smile off his face.

Maybe after this Corrin would be allowed to leave her tower. Once Xander had been assured there was no more threat of assassination, Leo couldn’t see him following their father’s legacy. He knew Xander would always blame himself for Garon’s death. He knew Xander would take this as his greatest failure as a prince, and that was perhaps Leo’s greatest regret. But their family was safe, and Leo knew that would hold more peace of mind in both their hearts than anything else. It was worth it to Leo.

He comforted Elise when she cried. He reassured Corrin when she worried. He allowed Camilla to hold him and bury her face in his hair. He stood tall next to Xander, looking for all to see like the proud princes they should have been. No father stood over their shoulders. No axe hung over their heads.

There was no time to catch a private moment with Niles or Odin to get the details of their deed, but Leo didn’t need to. They held his utmost trust. He wanted to know how they had done it—what Garon had said, if he’d begged, how they’d smuggled his body through the halls without being seen—but he held his tongue. That would have to wait. They would tell him, eventually. When the prying eyes and ears were gone.

That night, before Leo, Niles, and Odin went to bed—all piled in Leo’s bedroom under the pretense of keeping an eye on possible “traitors” as well as safeguarding the youngest prince against further assassination, but truly for Leo’s peace of mind—Niles looked at Odin and said, “I was unaware you were so skilled at swordplay.”

Odin winked. “I am a man of many hidden talents.”

Leo hummed. That was a story there for a later time.

“So it seems,” he said.

Two sets of hands, both callused, settled in Leo’s own. Leo sighed into the sheets, content. Somewhere else in the castle, the guards on the night shift were searching the castle for a traitor. Here in his bed, Leo laid with two men who loved him enough to become king slayers.

He’d never been happier.

**Author's Note:**

> And then they lived passionately in love with one another until the end of their days. The end. 
> 
> (I wanted this to be slightly more heavy on the romance but I worried I wouldn't find the motivation to finish with many more scenes, so I ended it here instead. Hopefully I can write something better before I fall back in FFXV hell when Episode Prompto is released.)
> 
> Feel free to leave a comment below or hmu at my [tumblr!](http://someobscurereference.tumblr.com/)


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